Tales of Monkey Island: Chapter 2 Review

It's almost pointless reviewing this second chapter in the Tales of Monkey Island story - you should absolutely not play it unless you've played the first, because it continues where that left off, meaning you will be missing potentially vital plot information. If you've already played the first and liked it, then you should already know what to expect here!

After defeating the evil Marquis de Singe and reversing the wind flow around Flotsam Island, Guybrush goes off in search of La Esponja Grande, to rid the Caribbean of the pox he accidentally released. Of course, he still has to find his beloved Elaine and his nemesis LeChuck as well!

Guybrush quickly discovers that to find La Esponja Grande, he must summon a bunch of legendary sea creatures to guide him to it, by using three mythical artifacts. Of course, these aren't just handed to him - they're all hidden in the vicinity of the titular Spinner Cay, which is a small rocky island inhabited by the mysterious Mer-People. As luck would have it, Elaine and LeChuck are there as well, so Guybrush gets the opportunity to set multiple things straight all at the same time.

As you probably aren't surprised to discover, the game plays exactly the same as the first chapter - Guybrush simply has to wander around the various locations, picking up objects and using them and his (or rather, your) wit to solve puzzles. After about 3-4 hours worth of puzzling - or more, if you just can't figure out one of this episode's slightly tougher puzzles - you'll reach the conclusion of this chapter in Guybrush's story, and you'll be left with another cliffhanger.

Thanks to Telltale's continuing sense of humour you're bound to laugh multiple times during this chapter. Again, they've captured the feel and wit of the series perfectly, and there's even a few throwbacks and references to Guybrush's past adventures, including one of the greatest pirate songs of all time!

There's something else you'll most definitely begin to notice now, though. Remember how quite a bunch of the citizens of Flotsam Island looked suspiciously alike? Well, it happens again here; once again you'll meet short, fat pirates and tall, skinny pirates who all look almost exactly the same. We really hope that this is all building up to some sort of "all of the pirates are actually relatives" joke in one of the last chapters, because for now it's getting really noticeable and looks fairly lazy!

Although annoying, we accepted the framerate and sound issues that plagued the WiiWare version of the first chapter. Telltale promised to look for a way to avoid this for future chapters, but apparently they didn't find one, as this chapter is also riddled with noticeable lag and fuzzy sound, and it's quite inexcusable that this has happened twice now.

Conclusion

As is the case with most multi-part games and stories, Chapter 2 of Tales of Monkey Island doesn't really do much interesting stuff in terms of story progression. It plays exactly the same as the first chapter, just with different puzzles, so if you enjoyed that, you'll most certainly enjoy this. Sadly, the game loses a point as it once again has annoying audio and visual hiccups; something which should not be allowed to happen. Please look for an acceptable solution for the next chapter, Telltale!

I can only imagine the frustration at Telltales office.Trying to cram a 200-400MB game into a ridiculously outdated 40MB limit all while trying to make the game run decently while the lack of RAM Wii is trying to uncompress EVERYTHING.

I fully blame Nintendo, and Telltale should've known to put this game on XBLA and PSN Store. Game are just getting too ambitious for WiiWare now, unless Nintendo finally decides to get it's head out of it's arse.

This chapter's framerate has been perfectly consistent and smooth for me so far (only about 1 hour into the episode,but I've walked around plenty of larger areas with plenty of details moving about). I don't know what the reviewer is referring to, or exactly what his issues were, but there's no question that Telltale greatly improved the port this time, something you'll notice right from the start.

@Warioswoods: and the sound? if your going to say something has "greatly changed" at least be more specific to all details. I'm having a hard time believing someone who describes a 3d wiiware game with perfect framerate.

I for one was not able to play the first game, honestly i tried three times to play and just couldn't understand what was going on between the lags even mid conversation, the fuzzy speech and unfit to tv subtitles.

@Hardy83 I agree with you. This is pretty much Nintendo's fault, but Telltale should have known better than to try to put a game like this on WiiWare. Although they're past titles on this platform did well, ToMI obviously is too big for WiiWare.

I've walked about in Spinner Cay a good bit and really didn't notice any significant lag, but certainly did notice the overall framerate being much higher than in Narwhal. Did you play the 1st one on WiiWare after you played it on the PC? The town in the 1st episode had very noticeable lag every time a character spoke, and a very low framerate when walking in larger areas -- if this one does have some lag, it's not noticeable on anywhere near the level of the 1st.

The sound has not really changed as far as I can tell, just the better framerate and absence or near-absence of stuttering or long loading pauses like in the first episode. I never had too much trouble hearing the characters in the first episode anyhow; I did turn down the music in this one, because it was far too loud relative to the voices when it first started, but after that adjustment I don't believe I've misheard a word yet.

Loved the PC version, but it was much easier then the first one. Still won't get the WiiWare version. Hate the lag. Hated it in Sam & Max Season One and Telltale Games promise it would be solved in Season 2, but appearently it's still not fixed in ToMI Ep.2 .

@warioswoods: Yeah, the framerate's a bit better than chapter 1, but it's still not anywhere near as good as the PC version. Honestly, if Telltale was that eager to release the game on Wii they should've just released it as a retail game like with Sam & Max in order to have more space to work out kinks.

" Please look for an acceptable solution for the next chapter, Telltale!"That wouldn't solve the fact that chapters 1+2 have problems.I still think the best option overall is to wait for all chapters to be released together on PC. Telltale could have released them all as a compilation disc, like with Sam & Max, except that they saw more $$$£££ in this approach.

Insta-download as I enjoyed the first. You also said it would've been an 8 if not for the same issues as with the first game with sticky framerate. It didn't bother me that much, so I read an 8 at least from my perspective.

However, I agree what Drake says regarding the game and retail. Yes, it should've been made into a retail version.

I hope the puzzles are a touch harder as I ambled through the last game.

Enjoyed it thoroughly mind.If the sound and framerate are anything are like the last game then it'll be FINE. A lot of people seem to be getting a VERY SERIOUS INDEED about this issue, which is occasionally noticeably, intermittently irritating when it is noticable but by no means game-breaking.

Ugh. The first game's lag and audio were bad enough but now they've done it again? Surely they could have created a large savefile and streamed the content from the Internet rather than limiting themselves to the physical restrictions of the 43Mb limit. Streaming would be fairly smooth and for the type of game, fairly uncomplicated. Plus it would lessen the need to compress / decompress data substantially meaning less strain on the two mice powering the processor.

I guess that's a bit too much like hard work when you're making a quick buck though. Not that they'll be getting any more from me until they re-think their approach to WiiWare Monkey Island. Lazy b*#t&$ds. At the end of the day, that's not the only problem - the art direction sucks too - why they couldn't have stuck to 2D is beyond me. Probably lack of talent.

Without wishing to come across as a spokesman for Telltale studios, the lag and sound really aren't THAT bad, I'd still rate the game as 7 for it's longevity, but the Monkey Island charm and fun is still all there.

If you really want to see a game afflicted with poor graphics and lag post-coversion-to-a-technically-inferior-system you lot should look at the PS2 version of 'Deus Ex'....

why say something like "the iPhone is more powerful than Wii" and make poo like this? telltale games failed in the monkey island series with this one ... they should've made a monkey island in monkey island 3-style or even 1&2.